The Storm
by Neko-Salosa
Summary: Some people in Amity Park find out Danny isn't such a bad guy after he saves a girl from drowning. One Shot


A storm was brewing in the distance, Danny could tell. It wasn't going to be a small one either, lightning flashed ominously in the distance and a cool wind came to haunt the town of Amity Park. Of course, weather was just about the last thing on Danny's mind.

"I've got you now, Ghost Child!" Skulker yelled and flew towards Danny with the ferocity of a bull.

"Ha, you wish, Skulker!" Danny jeered as he dodged the attack. Skulker's mass whizzed by his ear and he took a nervous gulp of air before rebounding with his ectoplasmic blasts.

Skulker dodged one of them but the other caught him in the arm and short circuited the handheld that programmed his ectoskeleton. His eyes glowed a horrible green before he took off. "We'll meet again, Ghost Child," he shouted as a last warning.

Danny watched him go and sighed, "Yeah, I know," he told the air. His response was a loud rumble of thunder and Danny looked at the sky. It radiated a greenish grey color and rain threatened to come down at any second. Danny was no meteorologist, but he guessed that when the sky was that color, the best thing to do was leave.

He took off from the ground and flew towards his house. Amity Park was a town built right by the ocean, and Danny had been through many a tropical storm. And if past experiences had taught him anything, this one was going to be a doozy.

He flew along the shore line just as the sky cracked open and rain started coming down in buckets. It fell through Danny's body but he really didn't care. It was almost 8:30 and with the storm having just begun he knew his mom would be looking out for him. A flash of light and a crack of thunder that almost made him go deaf warned Danny he was in fact, still half human and flying near the sky in ghost form or not might not be the greatest idea. Danny lowered his altitude and got ready to fly inland to his house when he heard a shrill scream.

Danny had said it once, and it pertained to anything, he could not ignore a scream for help. And he figured he was quite good at telling the difference between a 'ah it's thunder' scream and a 'Help, I'm in serious trouble' scream. He quickly flew towards what he thought was the source and came upon a horrible scene.

A five year old girl clung to a small craggy island in the middle of a bay. The waves beat on her and she was coughing and screaming as the coast guard desperately tried to get close enough to her to pull her on the boat. There was no helicopter, Danny knew, they had been trying to get one for months, but Amity was more worried about ghosts then mother nature. Mother Nature didn't appreciate the lack of attention.

"Hold on kid!" One man yelled out but Danny suspected he was the only one who heard the desperate cry.

"Help me…" The girl cried out and Danny watched the scene with a morbid curiosity before he shook himself out of his trance. Then he had an inner battle with his conscious about whether he should help or not.

'They can handle it,' his paranoid, yet sensible self told him. 'If you go down there they won't appreciate your help. They'll probably capture you.'

'But she's just a kid! And that boat has no hope of getting close to that island. It's practically a hurricane!' his heroic and more rash side told him.

Just before Danny was about to leave the drama to its own devices a large wave swept over the rocky island and dragged the small girl under the waves. His heroic side won and he quickly went intangible and dived into the waves.

Floating in water and flying in air had no profound difference to Danny when he was intangible, matter was matter and ghost was ghost. He couldn't see a thing in the murky depths and he summoned an ectoplasmic blast to see if it could help. He caught a flash of pink and flew/swam towards it. He came upon the unconscious form of the girl and he quickly made her intangible as well. Then he flew up and out of the water where he reappeared. He wasn't quite ready for the wind sheer and was blown around like a doll as he desperately tried to gain control of his flight patter once again.

"Hey, it's that ghost kid! And look, he's kidnapped that little girl!" one of the coast guards said.

Danny growled and went intangible; he righted himself and flew down to the boat where he re-appeared in front of an astonished crew. "Uhhh, no, I was trying to save her," he said.

A woman stepped forward and took the girl from his arms. She laid her out on the deck and started to pump her chest to get out the water that she had swallowed while unconscious.

All attention was diverted from Danny and they watched with breathless tension as the paramedic went to work. They didn't have to wait long; the girl coughed and spit up a fair amount of sea water. Then she sat up and looked around wildly. "Wh-where am I? What happened?" she asked. There was a huge crack of lightning and a crash of thunder that happened in such fast consecutiveness that Danny wondered why they weren't stuck by the lightning. With that scaring the poor girl who was already scared, she did the one thing any sane five year old in her situation would do, she cried.

Danny blinked and looked at the adults who looked at each other with the mutual expression of 'Well, what should we do?' on their faces. Danny sighed and got ready to take off; it really wasn't his problem any more. He turned around and faced a giant wall of water. "Oh man," Danny said softly.

Everyone followed his gaze and looked at the giant wave that was headed towards the small boat. Danny could tell now that even some of the adults were trying not to cry. He sighed and looked at his hands. Then he looked at the wave and adopted an intent look on his face. He flew up and said softly "Please work" and created a shield around the boat. Danny for one was thankful it was so small, or at least small in comparison to some boats he'd seen. The wave broke over the shield but all the damage that was done was done to the shoreline. Danny gave a sigh of relief and sunk down onto the boat, utterly exhausted.

"What did you do that for?" one man asked, not unkindly.

"Well, would you gave liked Mr. Wave to come down on the boat?" Danny asked sarcastically. The lack of energy was not improving his mood.

There was an embarrassed silence on both ends and Danny finally stood up. "I'll go now," he said quietly and floated into the air. Then he felt a small grip on his hand. He looked down to see the girl he saved gripping onto his hand. "Yes?" he asked.

The girl's lower lip trembled. "Don't go," she said softly.

"But, why?" Danny asked. "Aren't you scared of me?"

The girl shook her head. "What if another wave comes," she asked.

Danny actually smiled. "Well, this boat should be getting to shore soon, so I don't think you have anything to worry about."

The woman who Danny now presumed was the captain cleared her throat. "Actually, we had to anchor down, we're going to wait out the storm, driving the boat through this weather is too dangerous."

Danny felt the grip on his hand tighten and he looked down. He could tell that she was trying very hard not to cry. He winced and finally gave in, "All right, I'll stay, for now."

The crew looked less then happy, but Danny didn't really care about them. The girl smiled and loosened her grip a tiny bit.

"All right, let's all get inside," the Captain said.

Once inside the boat Danny and the girl were handed blankets but Danny abandoned his since it wasn't really needed.

"So, what's your name?" Danny asked.

"Amelia, what's yours?" she asked.

Danny blinked, "Ummm, Phantom."

"Really?" one of the crew members asked.

Danny nodded, "Really, my name is NOT Inviso-Bill, whatever you may have heard."

This comment earned him a few smiles and even a weak laugh. "Good," the Captain said. "I always thought Inviso-Bill sounded dumb."

"You and me both," Danny said.

Amelia was trying to dry herself off with the blanket and it wasn't going very well. Danny chuckled as she tried to dry out her hair while it was still in two pigtails on either side of her head. "Maybe you should take your hair out?" he suggested.

Amelia gave him a toothy grin and pulled her hair bands out and started to push the blanket haphazardly over her head. When she emerged she looked something like a porcupine. Danny laughed and she glared at him. "Sorry," he said quickly and took the blanket turned towel from her. "Here," he said and rubbed the towel quickly over her head, drying her hair and not pulling it out. When her face emerged in a toothy grin and dryer yet messy hair Danny couldn't help but laugh. "I learned that from my sister," he said.

"You have a sister?" Amelia asked.

"Yeup, she's older then me too," Danny said.

"Wow, I don't have any brothers or sisters," Amelia said, suddenly downcast.

Danny let her use his dry blanket to snuggle in and asked, "Why were you out there in that storm."

"Mom and dad were fighting again," she sighed. "I always go to that island when they fight."

Danny blinked then felt very uncomfortable. "Oh," he said.

Amelia looked at Danny's hands incredulously. "Can you do that shiny thing again?"

Danny vaguely wondered about her mood swing, then about her question. "Shiny thing?" he asked.

"Yeah!" Amelia said. "Like when your hands get all glowy and green! It looks so cool!" she said breathlessly.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Danny answered the same time the Captain did.

The captain smiled, "Not that I don't trust you but uhh…"

Danny shook his head. "No, no blasts in the boat."

Amelia gave him a pouty lip, "Awww, why not?"

"I… can't really control them all that well," Danny said slowly. He felt the tension in the air rise several degrees. Danny looked at the adults and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly.

"But, you used it when you saved me," she said.

Danny blinked, "You saw that?"

Amelia nodded. "Yeah! It looked really cool."

Danny sighed, "I'll show you when we get off the boat."

"Yay!" Amelia cheered and latched onto Danny. On Danny's part he was surprised that he didn't go intangible with the jolt of surprise that went though his body. The last thing he expected was to be hugged by a five year old. Danny laughed nervously and patted her on the head.

The Captain came over and sat on Danny's other side. "Phantom, what are you?" she asked. "You're not acting like you do on TV."

"I don't act for the TV," Danny said dryly. "I fight ghosts, I catch ghosts, I send them back to the ghost zone."

"Why? Aren't you a ghost?"

Danny looked to the side, "Kinda," he admitted. "Kinda not."

"What do you mean?" she asked. Danny was suddenly aware that everyone in the boat was staring at him.

Danny gave her a look that said 'please don't make me answer that' and she stopped asking questions.

Another man laughed, "You're not so bad, kid."

Danny actually smiled, "Thanks."

Amelia kept Danny's arm in her death embrace but didn't say anything as the conversations went on around her.

"So, Phantom, you're not an evil ghost?" another man asked.

"Not all ghosts are evil," Danny said calmly. "Some are though, what happened with the mayor and that… that was a set up by one of my enemies."

"It's not easy being Public Enemy #1, is it?" the Captain asked in what Danny mused was a sympathetic voice.

"No, but I'll deal with it, cause it's the right thing to do," he smiled.

"You're very mature for your age, or…" the Captain thought. "How old are you if you're not a ghost, but still a ghost."

"14," Danny answered. "I'm 14 and I wish you could tell my sister that I'm mature, she wouldn't believe me if I told her," he laughed.

The storm outside slowly died down and Amelia fell asleep holding onto Danny. Danny continued to have an easy chat with the crew and in it he learned that they had been a team protecting Amity Park for over 15 years. Danny was impressed; after all, he had only been doing it for 6 months.

"Well, for your sake kid, I hope you get your name cleared," the Captain said as the boat went back to shore.

Danny smiled, "I hope so too."

"Feel free to visit us any time, Phantom," one of the guys said. "We would appreciate the help, especially on days like this."

For the first time since Danny got his powers he actually felt truly appreciated for what he did. Not by Sam and Tuck but by people who didn't know what or who he was and just appreciated the fact that he was trying to do the right thing. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

The boat docked and Danny handed a sleeping Amelia to the Captain. "Thanks a lot for listening to me, not many people in this town would have done that."

Danny was surprised when one of the crew members ruffled his hair, "Don't worry about it. I think when you dived into the water to save that girl you proved what your intentions always were."

Danny smiled and took off. He waved then flew as fast as he could inland to make sure he wouldn't be late getting home. When he was half way there he remembered something.

Amelia woke up and looked around. "He's gone?" she asked.

"Sorry kid, he had to take off. It's not safe for him out in the open," one of the crew members said.

"But he didn't…" she said. Then a flash of light caught her eye. She looked in the distance and saw a green ball of light fly into the air and explode. "Wow…" she whispered.

Danny quickly flew home in invisibility mode in case some random ghost hunter saw that, but he did it with a smile on his face. Maybe things would get better after all.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Just a cute one off. Hope you liked it! I rather liked the concept and I hope it didn't come out too choppy.


End file.
